Numb Thumbs
by ribbonandbuttons
Summary: Focusing on Tony during Aliyah, Truth & Consequences and Rule 51. Tiva undertones.


_Not sure what this is really, just a little bit of a random thought covering Aliyah, Truth and Concequence and Rule 51._

**Numb Thumbs**

His hands were cold. Cold to the point of numbness. He didn't feel them quake or curl in on themselves. He wasn't even aware they were shaking until he looked down at them and saw them quiver. His mind was in an oddly shocked state. The whole week had drained him and now Ziva wasn't coming home with them. He wouldn't be able to fully make up for what he had done. Set the record straight. They had fought and he would never be able to make it right.

He caught a look from Gibbs and forced his hands to move. He shoved one into the flap of his suit, his other one pulled to his chest due to the sling curled into a fist. He let the loud deafening noise in the plane drown out the rest of his thoughts, his accusations, his fears and most importantly his feelings.

oo

Sweat ran down the back of his neck, he felt it under his dirty shirt. Mixing with the dust and dirt that was already on his clammy skin. He felt a drop roll from the underside of his arm, past the rope that bound his wrists. It slipped into the crevices of his hands and between his fingers. He tried to focus on it, let the small action of his body keep him rooted as whatever chemicals messed with his head and made him feel dizzy.

And then it happened. The door was wrenched open and the person was forced in. He forgot all about his light headedness or the dirt smeared across his skin and the sweat that slicked every visible surface. Air was nearly took out of him as he pulled off the bag, her face, her eyes, her lips, her hair, her body. Her. Alive. In front of him.

oo

His fingers fumbled as he handled her. Nerves mixed with shock and disbelief. He was too shaken up to fully process that this was reality. That he and McGee had escaped relatively unharmed and had brought Ziva with him. At some point between them leaving the buildings that had held them and arriving at the SUV that was there to take them to the helicopter Ziva had passed out, her head rolling between her shoulders, resting against him and then Tim as they hurried across the rough sandy terrain.

In the helicopter his hands were cold again, it felt odd as the rest of his body sweated profusely. She lay across his lap, her eyes were closed and he could tell she was in a deep sleep. She hardly moved as the chopper roared to life and Gibbs shouted over the sound of the engines to see if McGee was alright. Tony ignored him, his voice drowned out by the hum of the blades and the ringing and whooshing only he could hear in his own ears. He stared at her, not blinking until he followed her into darkness.

oo

She was different in the hospital. Still the stubborn old Ziva that he remembered as she denyed a hospital gown and a sedative. He stood outside the door as they examined her and the ashen faces of the nurses didn't go unnoticed as they left her room. She was exhausted so by the time he returned to her room after interrogating her doctor with McGee she was asleep again. This time it was fitful, her eyes fluttering as she tried to fight off her nightmares. He ran his hands unconciously together trying to heat them up, trying to get the feeling back into his fingers. They didn't feel like they were connected to him at all. He reached forward and gripped her hand, her skin had been scrubbed clean by Abby helped her shower back at the Navy Yard, before Gibbs demanded that she go to the hospital. Tony could hear Abby and Tim talk outside the door and he was thankful that they didn't come in. The silence in the room was uncomfortable but it would have been worse with Abby here too. Ziva stilled at his touch, her eyebrows settling into a frown on her freshly cleaned face. Tony could see the raw skin of a cut, a gash that had just closed over just above her eye, a scar lingering on her chin. He wanted to reach out and touch them, smooth them away, make it all better - but his hands were too numb to move.

oo

His hands didn't feel that way for nearly a year. Twleve months had passed until he felt the tell tale signs again, as he slipped through the crowds in that town in Mexico, following the wild card that was Mike Franks, his fingers twitching to use his gun and end this here and now. Instead they tingled with nerves, pins and needles pricking his skin, his thumb already immobile, his knuckles freezing up. His cheap tourist shirt itched his skin, sweat ran down his shoulder blades but only part of his mind was on his mission in hand and the danger he was in. The other part was at home, with the woman he had left behind and the promise he had broken.


End file.
